Photo by Carol Sheridan Photography
Photo by Bob Haskins Photography
Libby Lavella Perfitt
Hello! I am a singer, a vocal coach and a voice therapist. I have been in pursuit of understanding voice, and ultimately how it intersects with speech and language, most of my life. I pursued music and drama during in my formative years in Australia. I cut my teeth singing in rock bands around Sydney as a teenager. I attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music shortly after High School for a brief stint before traveling the world. I explored Egypt, Zimbabwe, Europe and The United States before moving to California to study music and ultimately work in the music and entertainment industry as a singer.
At UCLA, I studied Jazz, Songwriting, Film Scoring, and Music Business, mostly through the Extension Studies program. During this time I honed my songwriting skills and recorded a lot of demos. I worked with Lis Lewis to improve my vocal technique and then through her initial encouragement, also started to coach. While cutting my teeth as a new vocal coach, I continued to write and record and after much experiment, I released my first album, Sponge Brain. This was followed by Sometime In Morning and then Live at Largo, a self released bootleg of recordings taken from performances over the course of one year. Alongside these releases, I worked with my cousin Antonio Gambale under the name Jumeaux, to write a collection of songs for the book series The Immortal Nicholas Flamel for our friend Michael Scott. I then formed a harmony trio called The Amber, which then became a duo called RLLS with Ryland Shelton. As a session singer I’ve worked with Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star), Kate Ceberano, Smash Mouth, was Grammy Nominated for my work with Gustavo Galindo, sang on Universal’s Curious George Halloween movie “Boo!”, The Tonight Show, and much more.
A desire to study more scientific aspects of voice led me to U.C. Berkeley to study linguistics. My honors thesis analyzed the relationship between speech and singing in aging voice. I was guided by Dr. Keith Johnson and Dr. Susan Lin. This then led me to complete a Masters in Speech, Language and Communication Sciences. I completed my clinical fellowship with The Wellness Group for Voice Speech and Swallowing in Oregon.
As a CCM voice coach, my goal is to provide a functional, personalized method for the whole person. I believe that voice work should be for all people, no matter the status, the natural ability, the level of career or the age. I am dedicated to nurturing, not only exceptional and holistic vocal skills, but also the individuality of each voice. By empowering clients to acquire the tools they need to maintain their own voice and shape their own unique sounds, I aim to make the joy of self-discovery and expression fun and understandable, while fostering confident voice use that contributes to a rich tapestry of empowered voice users everywhere.
My vocal method, Singuistics was launched in 2023 in Sydney. I see clients all over the world from the United States, Australia, England, Japan, Pakistan and Europe.